Kiss Me in Paris

by Catherine Rider

“Six o’clock is not dinnertime in Paris.”

  “Well, that’s ridiculous …” She leans right up against the glass, to peer inside. “You’re telling me the French don’t ever get hungry before seven?”

  Because this place is meaningful to her, I choose not to rise to this taunt.

  Serena startles and jumps back when a man appears behind the glass. He’s dressed all in black, with a hairstyle so puffy and rounded, it looks like a pancake on his head — a bouffant if ever I saw it. His name badge says “Didier.” He gestures at us to go away, but Serena clasps her hands together and makes a face so pleading, he opens the door.

  Serena starts talking before he can say anything. “Excuse me, sir, but what time do you open?”

  “Six thirty. You come back then.” Didier’s English is good, but his accent is torturing the vowels.

  Serena makes a sound that is caught between a gasp and a sigh. “Listen, I know I might be out of line here, but I’ve had a really crappy day” — I bristle at that — “and it would be really great if I could get out of the cold for a little bit. Is there, like, any chance we could just come inside and have a drink while we wait for the kitchen to open?”

  Didier thinks about it for a second, then nods. “I suppose it will be okay for you to come in and have a drink,” he says. Then he takes a step back and holds the door all the way open. “After all, it is almost Christmas.”

  “Oh, thank you, sir!” Serena takes a hold of my sleeve and drags me in after her. “You are very, very kind, thank you!”

  We follow Didier through the restaurant. It looks kind of eerie without people. I can’t stop myself imagining that there were people here just before we arrived, but they came to a bad end — and Didier is now leading us into a trap.

  On instinct, I ask him if we might sit at a small table in the far corner, because I will feel better if I can see the whole room. He just shrugs as if to say, Whatever, and we sit down. Serena picks up a drink menu and turns it over in her hand, quickly reading and asking for a Coke. After all the champagne on board the party boat, I guess she does not need any more alcohol. I ask for the same. Didier disappears to fetch them, leaving us alone.

  I feel instantly uncomfortable with the silence. After a few moments of awkward fidgeting, I lean toward Serena and say, “I am sorry … for yelling at you earlier. I was tired — but that is no excuse. I should not have been so hard on you.”

  She smiles at me. “I don’t like the feeling of being lost, either.”

  I look at the table to hide the blood rushing to my cheeks. “I feel like an idiot, for getting so worked up over finding a taxi. But when it is your city and you are looking after a friend, you feel responsible.”

  I see her blink at me, her head cocking to one side, just an inch or so. Was I being presumptuous, calling her a “friend”?

  She shifts in her chair to face me fully. “I’m sorry, too. I know I can’t have been the easiest of people to be stuck with today.” She looks at the wall and grins, shaking her head as if she cannot believe what she is remembering. “But the whole party boat thing was kind of funny …”

  “You will have your own unique memories of Paris, just like your mom and dad did.”

  I hear her take a sharp breath, her smile suddenly shakier. “I cannot imagine what it is like to grieve a parent,” I tell her honestly. “For what it is worth, I admire your courage. This trip must require a lot of strength.”

  She looks down at the table. “It’s harder because it’s Christmas. No one loved Christmastime more than Dad. He used to get so excited that Mom had to secretly switch his coffee for decaf, just so that he had a chance of going to sleep at night. She always used to tease him, ‘It’s the kids who are supposed to be kept awake by their excitement …’”

  She looks past me for a moment, her eyes sparkling. A smile creeps across her face. “Wow … I haven’t thought about that in a while. Not once in the two years since he passed, but just now … that memory, like, climbed into my head, by itself.”

  “It has always been there,” I tell her. “It was behind a door in your mind. Because you know what is behind the door, you don’t always have to look. But when you open it, it is like remembering all over again. The last time I was with my grandpapa, we were looking through old photo albums. Mama would point to this photo or that photo, and she would ask him: Did he remember this, remember that? One of the photos was of me and him at a rugby match. France versus England. So many people at the stadium, you know? I was about five years old, so my memory of that day was not clear. I ask Mama, ‘What happened? Who won?,’ but she could not tell me. Then, Grandpapa, he shouts so loud, I almost fall off the sofa! He tells me all about the match, every detail. How France almost won in the last few minutes, but then Jonny Wilkinson made a drop goal and England won.”

  It is rare that I smile while I describe France losing to England, but that’s what I’m doing — smiling — while at the same time hot tears form in my eyes. All at once, I feel happy and sad. Memory is very strange.

  “Was he right?” Serena asks. “I mean, was he remembering what actually happened?”

  I shrug. “I do not know for sure. But I looked up the match, and the score was as he said. Even if he was wrong, though, I … I would not really care. For a few moments, it felt like I had my real grandpapa back.”

  She stares at me for a long moment. Her eyes have been shimmering with tears since she started telling me how excited her father would get at Christmas. We both have one hand on the table, and I see her fingers twitch — is she thinking about reaching across and taking my hand? Before she can move, Didier is back.

  “I have spoken with the chef,” he tells us, setting our Cokes down on the table, “and he says, because it is Christmas, he is happy to make something for you early.”

  Serena looks very happy to hear this. “Oh, thank you so much,” she says. “Can I please have the blanquette de veau?”

  Veal stew must be what her parents had when they were here. I tell Didier that I’ll have the same, and he is gone as quickly as he reappeared, his bouffant only just about managing to keep up.

  Once we’re alone again, Serena looks back at her hand, sees its awkward position on the table and retracts it. “Your grandfather sounds like a great guy.”

  “He was.”

  “Hey, he’s still here.” She leans forward to look me in the eye, to make her point. Keeps her hands on her side of the table. “He’s not dead.”

  I stop myself from saying he might as well be — since, most of the time, it feels like he is — and instead just let the silence play out.

  When Serena’s phone pings, we are both startled. “Sorry,” she says, rummaging in her bag. She takes out her phone and looks at the screen as if she does not understand what she is seeing.

  “Is something wrong?” I ask her.

  “Uh … no … It’s just a friend. From school. A friend from school.”

  Ah. I understand. For some reason, I can’t stop myself from addressing the tabletop. “The boy from the bridge.”

  “Ethan. He says his friend Jesse can’t make it anymore, so …”

  She stares back at her phone, as if wanting to confirm that she has actually read Ethan’s message correctly.

  I ask, “What can’t Jesse make?”

  “Oh … Ethan, he” — she puts her phone back in her bag — “he has tickets. For the Eiffel Tower tonight. He just offered one to me. He also invited me to dinner at some place called Le cygne rouge, but said that I need to get there in an hour, because that’s when he’s leaving.”

  I know the bistro. The Red Swan. It is down by Barbès-Rochechouart and is … well, it is terrible. “That sounds nice,” I say. “If you want, we can cancel the food here. Or I can eat it all … I am suddenly very hungry.”

  Maybe I should dial it down a little, so that it doesn’t look li
ke I want her to go away. It’s not lost on me that I actually got through talking about my grandpapa without falling to pieces, which is what I feared would happen if I tried, and that she accepted my simple explanations without probing, without asking more questions. We haven’t had the easiest of times getting around Paris today, but — mostly — talking to Serena has been easy, and I’ll admit to myself that I really like this about her and want it to continue for the rest of this night …

  But I know how much she wants to go to the tower. I do not want her to feel guilty about leaving.

  “No,” she says brightly. “That’s okay. We’ve already ordered, and I wanted to eat here. This restaurant is just as important a stop on the Romance Tour as making it to the Eiffel Tower. If I rush it just so I can meet Ethan, I won’t appreciate it …” She looks down at the table, and I can tell that she is not at all certain about her decision. Then she looks up at me. “Besides, you’ve gone out of your way to show me around today, so the least I could do is buy you a nice dinner.”

  I smile and try not to look too happy. Then I concentrate on my Coke, picking up my glass and swirling it around.

  “Sorry,” she says, putting the phone back in her bag. “It was so rude of me to check my phone during dinner.”

  I give her my best smile. “Dinner has not arrived …”

  “And it’s probably not even ‘dinner,’ is it?” She makes a shocked face. “Before seven o’clock! My God!”

  I do my best to laugh with her, but it’s kind of awkward, and the back of my neck starts to itch a little — which always happens when I’m tense and nervous.

  When I hear the whine of a door swinging open, I look in the direction of the kitchen, grateful for the distraction of Didier coming back with appetizers. But it is not the young man with the perfect bouffant heading over to our table.

  It is Martine.

  And suddenly it all makes sense to me. That is why the name of this place sounded familiar. Right before we broke up, Martine had an interview for a waitressing job. I feel wretched for not knowing the outcome of the interview — and I also start regretting asking for a corner table. I’m totally trapped.

  *

  It is a familiar feeling, being trapped by Martine. When the spontaneous, passionate woman who so excited me when we were first together spontaneously, passionately decided to break into my dorm room and sit on my bed, waiting for me to get back from another dressing down from Monsieur Deschamps … I’d known she had pulled me over to a place I did not want to be.

  “I have some things I wish to talk about.” She stood up off the bed, and I became painfully aware that underneath it, right by her foot, was a shirt that she had made for me in her clothing design class.

  And then she was walking toward me. “I have been thinking a lot about us, and I believe I have figured something out.”

  “Please don’t do this,” I told her. “These conversations, they never end well. We both end up depressed. You’re making it harder on yourself. And you can’t just break into dorms like this, Martine — what if one of my dormmates saw you? You could get in trouble!”

  I could see in her eyes that this didn’t really get through to her. The feeling of being suffocated — which I had felt fairly often when I was around her — was creeping back.

  “Please just answer one question,” she said. “Answer one question, and I will leave.”

  I doubted there could be a single us-related question that she hadn’t yet asked me, but I nodded and said okay.

  “What is your problem?”

  “My problem?” I asked, trying not to laugh too hard. For all the stress and drama she created, I did not want Martine to think I was mocking her. She did not deserve that. “Well, I have someone sneaking into my dorm room when I’m not here. And I’m worried about you, because this is not normal behavior.”

  She said nothing — and when someone so talkative falls silent, it can be unnerving. Finally, she shook her head: “I didn’t mean that. I meant, what is your real problem? The deep problem. Why are you turned off by someone wanting to be close to you?”

  I couldn’t give her an answer, because I had not expected the question.

  “I have some work to do,” was all I said. “And I know you must have work to do, as well …”

  I gestured toward the door, but she didn’t move. She just sighed and put her hands on her head, the raven on her forearm suspended in flight, glaring at me.

  “You are always running away,” she told the ceiling. “I used to think you wanted to see if people would follow you, but now I’m not so sure. I think you might actually like running!”

  For some reason, this prompted me to look at the floor, which I must have done for a long time, because pretty soon, Martine was shouting, over and over again: “Look at me … Will you please … just look at me, Jean-Luc? Stop running, and look … see the person who is running with you!”

  *

  Now, in the bistro, I feel like I want to literally run away. But I don’t. I just stare at Martine staring at me, standing as still as some of the statues in the Louvre. Then a flash of movement at the corner of my vision drags my attention to Serena, who’s shifting in her chair to see who I’m staring at. She sees Martine, then looks back at me, her eyes widening, like, Oh, God — it’s the crazy ex-girlfriend from the photo!

  Martine turns to the bar and chats with the short, plump woman standing behind it.

  “How rough was your breakup?” Serena mumbles to me.

  I answer through the corner of my mouth: “Très rough … Listen, I might have to …”

  “She’s coming, she’s coming!”

  I wish I could say that Martine seems to walk over to us in slow motion, but real life is never so kind as to give you time and space to think. There are maybe ten yards between us and her, and she closes that distance in a few seconds flat.

  “Martine …” I can barely hear my own voice over the sound in my head, like the rushing noise you get on an airplane. I am somehow able to smile, though all I can think is, how the hell can I explain why I’ve brought a girl to her place of work? I’m not even sure I can tell her the truth, because, as I lay it all out in my head — random American girl turns up at my dorm, and we go on an odyssey through Paris, at Christmas — it seems kind of … romantic, and I don’t want Martine to get the wrong idea.

  She’s had enough hurt this winter.

  She stops by our table. I don’t like the way she’s smiling, like she’s happy I’m here. I also don’t like that she’s standing the same way Didier was when he took our order just now, barely moving with her hands behind her back. “Jean-Luc … How nice to see you. Merry Christmas.”

  She’s speaking English, which means that one of her colleagues must have mentioned that there’s an American here. The rushing noise in my head is now almost deafening.

  Martine turns to Serena, her smile so unnervingly placid that I can tell she’s putting effort into it — and any smile that takes this much effort is not to be trusted. “I know Didier has already taken your order, but anything else you want, just ask me.”

  Serena hesitates for a moment, probably a little uncomfortable at meeting my crazy ex-girlfriend in a deserted restaurant in a foreign country. I feel bad that she’s in the middle of this, and the way Martine is just smiling makes my ribs give my heart the kind of death-hug that reminds me of the hugs she would give me back when we first got together.

  I have to get out of here — right now. If we stay, Martine will say or do something that will start another argument. I never got around to answering her question — Why are you turned off by someone wanting to be close to you? — and after everything she said about my always running away, my actually running now would only prove her point.

  But what else can I possibly do?

  “Actually,” I start to say, “we were just about to tel
l Didier that we could not stay after all.”

  “We were?” That is Serena, sounding as confused as if I said this in French. I don’t look at her, because I don’t think I could bear to see her disappointment. It’s the only thing that gives me the nerve to hold Martine’s cold blue eyes.

  “Would you please cancel our order?” I ask.

  Martine is quiet. That always makes me nervous. Since we’re talking in English, I’m choosing my words very carefully, and the deliberate way I’m speaking and enunciating, so that Martine will definitely understand, makes everything I say seem a bit colder, a bit more cutting, than I intend.

  “What are you talking about?” That’s Serena again. I can see her on the edge of my vision, leaning forward. Yes, it’s actually easier than I expected to keep looking at Martine — the alternative is to look at Serena and confirm that I am going to ruin yet another stop on the Romance Tour.

  “Yes,” I tell Martine, lifting my coat from the back of my chair. “Just as we arrived, my mama texted me to say she might need some help with Grandpapa. She has been with him all day, so it is unfair of me to be out having a fancy dinner while she is stuck at home.”

  “But your aunt Fleur visits him every Friday” is all Martine says. I forgot how well she knows me.

  “Fleur is … sick.” My coat is on, and it joins my rib cage in its death-hug. I feel like I am going to either pass out or throw up. “Please extend our apologies to the chef.”

  I flick my eyes to Serena in a way that I hope tells her that I’ll see her outside. She just looks back at me, confused and very angry.

  I don’t walk past Martine. Instead, I veer left, putting three rows of tables between us before I head toward the door, because what if she’s holding something sharp behind her back?

  Back out on Abbesses, the way the winter air slices at my cheeks feels almost pleasant, like it is scraping away the tension I’m feeling. At the same time, the dense fog seems to close around me. I see so little of the city that I start to feel claustrophobic even though I’m outside. I figure I’ll be okay if I can just get away from this bistro, so I hurry down the steps to the sidewalk and along Abbesses without looking back — until I realize that Serena hasn’t come out. She’s not actually staying behind to eat by herself?